The lunar lander developed by Russia for the first near polar mission Luna – 25 is equipped with a compact and multifunctional robotic arm (Lunar Manipulator Complex, LMC) designed for contact operations with the lunar regolith. The robotic arm shall excavate the lunar regolith down to tens of centimeters, collect regolith samples and deliver them to a laser ionization mass spectrometer for the elemental and isotopic composition analysis. Luna – 25 enters the final preparation stage to be ready for the launch in 2022. As a part of this activity special robotic arm ground tests were successfully conducted at Earth facilities imitating lunar like conditions. It was tested how the robotic arm could excavate the analog of lunar regolith mixed with different concentrations of water and frozen to the cryogenic temperatures (−100 °C). It was shown that mechanical strength of the frozen analog of the lunar regolith significantly increases with the increase of water ice concentration and demonstrated that the robotic arm is capable of excavating trenches and collecting samples in the ice rich analog of the lunar regolith homogeneously mixed with 1.5 wt % of water ice.

俄罗斯为第一个近极地任务 Luna-25 开发的月球着陆器配备了一个紧凑的多功能机械臂（Lunar Manipulator Complex，LMC），用于与月球风化层接触操作。机械臂将月球风化层挖掘至数十厘米，收集风化层样品并将其输送到激光电离质谱仪进行元素和同位素组成分析。Luna - 25 进入最后准备阶段，准备在 2022 年发射。作为这项活动的一部分，在模拟月球条件的地球设施上成功进行了特殊的机械臂地面测试。测试了机械臂如何挖掘与不同浓度的水混合并冷冻至低温（-100°C）的月球风化层模拟物。